Comments on: GameChat – Twins @ Rangers, 7:05http://knuckleballsblog.com/2010/08/23/gamechat-twins-rangers-705/
"Like butterflies with hiccups"Tue, 02 Jun 2015 15:45:12 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3By: thisisbethhttp://knuckleballsblog.com/2010/08/23/gamechat-twins-rangers-705/#comment-1455
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:39:47 +0000http://knuckleballsblog.com/?p=3469#comment-1455My cousin lives in TX (and is there from there, sorta–my uncle was in the military, so he’s lived all over, but TX and CA are the two states he spent the most time in, and graduated high school/went to college in TX). He was complaining on Facebook about Joe Mauer breaking up the no-hitter. I told him it was justified to hate him, just like friends and I refer to Mike Sweeney as “Stupid Mike Sweeney” (we love Mike Sweeney, but after the August 31, 2007 game where-in he broke up a no-hitter with one out in the ninth–same situation as Mauer, but Baker gave up the hit…and also started the game). After looking at the box score, I came back and retracted my comment based on the fact that it was four different pitchers combining.

Also, someone was mocking all the no-hitters this year, and said that to be noticed pitchers have to do something different, and suggested that some pitcher “walk 30 batters, lose the game”. (Clearly not possible with the pitch-counts, but the fact remains, if you could somehow walk 30 batters, you could easily lose the game on a no-hitter!) I agree whole-heartedly that when a pitcher walks so many batters, it’s hard to be as impressed with a no-hitter. It’s when there’s three walks through nine innings (or less!) that I’ll be really impressed.

But above all, I was surprised more people weren’t impressed with Blackburn. I mean, we all know how he struggled before he got sent down to Rochester, so to have him churn a quality start against a good offensive team is relieving to see. Plus, it seems he got a lot of ground balls (from this report), and ground ball pitchers run into times when every ground ball is hit to a player and times when every ground ball finds the little holes in infield. But ground balls from ground-ball pitchers is what I want to see/hear!